Category Archive: News

Michelin Star Chef Atul Kochhar will be launching his new book ‘Curries of the World, Edition 2013′ on Saturday 15th June

To celebrate the occasion Jaipur Dalkey will have Atul’s special three course lunch menu available all weekend from 12.30-3pm from 14th-16th June

In his book Atul explores curries of the world, looking to his native India, Asia, Africa, The Americas and even the UK. Curry remains one of the world’s most popular dishes and Atul’s collection of mouth watering dishes does more than enough to convince us why.

The Leinster Regional Final for the Restaurant Awards 2012 sponsored by Santa Rita / Sunday Independent Life Magazine took place in The Westin Hotel, Tuesday 16th April 2012.

Sunil Ghai won Best Chef in Co. Wicklow and Chakra won Best Customer Service in Co. Wicklow.

Speaking at the awards, Brian Fallon, President of The Restaurants Association said.

‘Since their inception, the Irish Restaurant Awards have cast a spotlight on Ireland’s hottest restaurants and chefs. They have become a byword for quality, class and achievement… The awards everyone wants to win. As a testament to their success, the entries have doubled since last year, with 5,000 nominations made for Ireland’s favourite Restaurants, Chefs, Gastro Pubs, Hotel Restaurants and Local Food Heroes throughout the Country.

We celebrate the award winning cuisines and the great restaurateurs and chefs who have brought international recognition and accolades to the Irish restaurant scene. We are the economic engine rooms in every town in Ireland, creating and maintaining much needed local employment. Our industry has annual sales in excess of €2 billion and we employ 64,000 people. In fact, we are the largest employer within the Irish Tourism Sector. And tonight, everyone is a winner’.

The Chakra team

Nominations for the awards were made by readers of the Sunday Independent Life Magazine and members of the Restaurants Association of Ireland. All nominees are then assessed by Regional Judging panels, made up of Industry experts across the region. Votes from the Consumer, Members of the Restaurants Association of Ireland and the Regional Judges are independently assessed by KPMG who give us our County Winner in each category.

You can now explore Dublin from the palm of
your hand! Dublin has never been closer…..
Explore, discover, experience and enjoy one of the most vibrant
capitals in Europe from the comfort of your home, at
35,000 feet, or the bustle of Grafton Street!

What’s it all About

The Visit Dublin App uses technology allowing you to use
directional search to move around Dublin and discover your
interests. Simply by pointing your Smartphone (iPhone/Android) you will find rich information about the places you see around you. This powerful pointing technology performs directionally filtered searches so that you get the information you are looking for quickly and easily. To find your way to an interesting spot, you can use the convenient Guide Me and/or Camera View augmented reality features.

And there is so much more…

The Visit Dublin App offers so much more to visitors and locals alike!
- Audio descriptions, explanations and history for over 80 points of interests around the city
- Special Offers in retail, restaurants and tours offering you fantastic value and options. Simply show the voucher on your phone and receive the offer!
- Use the ‘Point to Call’ function to phone a restaurant, tour and make your booking direct.
- ‘What’s That?’ – not sure what that building is in front of you?! Point at the real world point of interest and retrieve information about it!
- Daily Bulletin – receive a daily update to your phone on what is happening in Dublin
- Virtually explore Dublin before visiting. Users can virtually move to locations in Dublin and explore and research in advance of travelling!
- Information within the Visit Dublin App is cached allowing the majority of the data to be stored locally on your device thus enhancing search performance and playback
- The Visit Dublin App can function without any network connection, limiting roaming charges, for example, the application will work in airplane mode

Good Food Ireland Newcomer of the Year

WINNER: Ananda Restaurant (Dublin)

Award winning fine dining Indian Restaurant

Glimpsing the kitchen, the well-turned out chefs, a room that is intriguingly designed with rich tones, large windows and plenty of dark wood there is a complex statement being made here. Ananda sets it’s stall out early. And with good reason.

The chef is Sunil Ghai, who along with owner Asheesh Dewan, is responsible for the excellent Jaipur brand (a group of establishments spread throughout the city). Here however they have managed to distil a modern sense of India, fine dining and a deep and broad understanding of Indian cuisine into one cohesive and impressive whole.

While the format is well trodden – poppadoms and pickles, first and second courses – here you quickly realise things are different. The pickles for a start, deliver subtly and excitement in equal measure. Teasers? They certainly set you up with style.

Taste of Christmas 2011

Taste of Christmas hosts some of the capital’s best restaurants, celebrating all that’s great about eating out in Dublin. Expect menus of seasonally inspired, Irish and internationally accented cuisine in the 2011 line-up.

With a focus on flavour and the celebration of the best local and seasonal cuisine, the menus at Taste of Christmas offer an exciting snapshot of the capital’s best cooking.

Alongside the tapas-sized dishes carefully chosen to highlight the strengths of each restaurant, unique signature dishes will be created by chefs to specially reflect their philosophy and showcase seasonal and premium ingredients.

Picture shows:

ANANDA, the cosmopolitan Indian restaurant in Dundrum Town Centre, has triumphed once again, winning the prestigious Hotel & Catering Review Gold Medal Award for Ethnic Restaurants, sponsored by Cobra, for the second successive year.

Located at Dublin’s shopping mecca, this multi-award winning eatery beat off stiff competition from peers in Ireland’s ethnic dining sector to scoop the coveted award at the 23rd Annual Hotel & Catering Review Gold Medal Awards on Monday night. Its achievement marks the third-straight win for Ananda’s parent, the Jaipur Group, which also topped the category in 2009 with its Greystones restaurant, Chakra.

MasterChef Ireland 2011

In this programme, the seven remaining MasterChef Ireland contestants take on the complexities of Indian cooking when they have to prepare food for paying guests in Ananda, an award-winning Indian restaurant in Dundrum, Dublin, where they will have to master the art of preparing Indian dishes to a fine dining standard.

Ananda at Dundrum is often described as one of the best Indian dining experiences in Ireland and is a partnership between serial restaurateur Asheesh Dewan and the inimitable Atul Kochhar, the first Indian chef to receive a Michelin star for his renowned London restaurant Benares.

Ananda’s Executive Chef, Sunil Ghai has won many awards and fans for his bold contemporary cooking style, including the Chef of the Year in 2009 at the Food and Wine Awards.

Sunil gives the contestants a Masterclass in Indian cookery in which he talks about three main things – spices, a basic curry base and rice. The seven contestants are then divided into two groups. Clare Anne, Christine and Mary will cook a lunch service and Shane, Mike, Bridin and Pierce will cook a dinner service.

The second task of the programme is an Indian-themed invention test, in which all seven have 15 minutes in Eurasia, Ireland’s largest ethnic ingredients store, to choose ingredients for an Indian dish which will then have to be cooked back in the MasterChef kitchen for Nick and Dylan.

Things are hotting up in more ways than one for the remaining seven as there’s a twist in the tail at eliminations. All seven know they will have to produce impeccable food to have any chance of staying in the competition and winning the coveted title of MasterChef Ireland.

Picture shows:

Sunil Ghai, executive chef at Ananda Restaurant in Dublin, offers Minister for Tourism Leo Varadkar a taste of India as a delegation, led by Tourism Ireland, prepared to depart for Bangalore to participate in Destination Britain & Ireland(DEBI), the biggest B2B travel trade event in the region. They are pictured with Niall Gibbons, CEO, Tourism Ireland(right).

Tourism Ireland was able to capitalise on the new visa waiver scheme during its tourism trade mission to Bangalore this month, where it took part in Destination Britain & Ireland, the biggest business to business travel trade event in the Asia-Pacific region. There Irish tourism representatives met with 120 top-producing tour operators, travel agents and travel media from 15 emerging markets including Indiam Chinam Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.

‘With the Governments’s recently announced imaginative tourist visa waiver scheme making it easier for tourists from emerging economies to visit Ireland, the time is right to step up promotion in markets in the Asia-Pacific region,’ said Tourism Ireland CEO, Niall Gibbons. ‘The Asia-Pacific region offers exciting possibilities for tourism to the island of Ireland in the medium to long-term. The United Nations World Tourism Organisation(UNWTO) has forecast that the Asia-Pacific region will be one of the fastest-growing regions for outbound travel in the next 10 years.’